


Winchesters

by geekqueen99



Series: The Winchesters [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Genderbend, dean to deanna, john to johanna, sam to samantha
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-28
Updated: 2015-11-15
Packaged: 2018-04-23 18:14:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 15,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4886800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/geekqueen99/pseuds/geekqueen99
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Winchesters" is a fanfiction that is pretty big for me. I have probably spent an unhealthy amount of time on it. It's the genderbent version of Supernatural where the boys are sisters. It follows the same plot, and this story is the first season. The description below is for people who may not watch Supernatural but still want to read the story because let's face it- Samantha and Deanna are amazing.</p><p>Saving people,<br/>Hunting things,<br/>The family business.</p><p>Samantha and Deanna Winchester are sister hunters, crisscrossing the U.S. and fighting monsters as they search for their off-the-grid mother, Johanna. They face life threatening challenges that may result in worse than even death, but they go on. Join the girls in their horrific and action-filled journey.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It all started in Lawrence, Kansas, twenty two years ago. It was a quiet night in a quiet place. The crickets chirped in the yard and a little blonde, four year old girl with big green eyes peeked at her baby sister- only six months old -in her wooden crib.

"Deanna, say goodnight to sissy," her father, Marty Winchester, said. She looked just like him. They both had dirty blond hair and joy-filled eyes the color of green gems. She was his little girl, right down to the freckles on her sun-kissed cheeks.

"Night, Sammy," she said, planting a small kiss on her sister's forehead.

Their father came over and kissed his youngest daughter goodnight as well. "Goodnight, sweet-heart."

"Hey, Dean," a light, friendly voice said from behind them. In the door frame of the nursery stood Johanna Winchester, loving wife and mother of two. She had dark hair that was tied in the back per usual. She wore her the jumpsuit uniform she always did for work, and her hands were sticky with oil from fixing up broken babies.

Deanna ran to her. "Mommy!" she exclaimed. She jumped into the women's arms and Johanna picked her up like nothing.

"Hey, girly," she greeted again. "So what do you think? Think Sammy's ready to toss around the ball yet?"

"No, Mommy." smiling Deanna said, shaking her head.

"Nooo," Joanna mocked her daughter.

"Got her?" Marty asked as she slipped out of the room.

"Yeah," Joanna answered, hugging the daughter in her arms. "Sweet dreams, Samantha." she said before turning out the lights.

*

Later that night, Marty was awoken from his sleep by the baby monitor next to his bed. Samantha was crying. Again. "Joanna?" he whispered but he wasn't in bed. He turned on the bed-side table's lamp so he would be able to see where he was going even half asleep. Marty pulled himself out of bed with a tired groan. He had to go check on Samantha.

Marty walked across the hall to the nursery and saw a clearly female figure standing over Samantha. The light was dim and he said her name. "Johanna," she whispered. "Is she hungry?"

Johanna shushed him softly, and all he replied was "okay", before walking off.

The light flickered in the hall by the stair case. It was like he was compelled to go over there. He tapped it once and it stopped, going back to the dim but steady light it usually was. Then, he noticed the noise coming from downstairs. He could hear the TV.

As soon as he saw than Johanna had fallen asleep on the recliner watching her soaps, fear sprang into him. Who was standing over their baby?

Marty ran up the stairs. He kept repeating her name over and over as if the baby was going to answer him. It was instinct, though and he couldn't help it. "Sammy! Sammy!" he screamed.

*

Johanna was awoken by a scream. Marty's scream. She automatically yelled her husband's name as she got up. She ran up the white painted stairs to see what going on. She almost fell into the wall, clumsy from panic. Her heart was beating on over-load.

She ran into the only open door to see that everything looked normal. Sam was calm in her crib, making Johanna think it might have all been a nightmare. She pushed down the side of the crib to pick up her baby girl. But when her hands came down to grab Samantha, drops of something warm and dark red appeared on her hand. Blood. She looked up.

Oh, my god.

Marty was pinned to the ceiling and his body burst into flames as Johanna tripped over her feet in fright and overwhelming pressure. "No, Marty! Marty!" she cried out.

Sam began to cry and she knew what she had to do. She had to save her children. Johanna grabbed Samantha out of the crib and carried her into the hallway. Deanna ran out of her room, scared with tears in her bright green eyes. "Mommy!" she whined. "Mommy!"

Johanna looked at Deanna seriously. "Take your sister outside as fast as you can and don't look back. Now, Deanna, go!"

Deanna ran with her baby sister in her arms all the way out the house and through the front door. When they were out in the front yard, Deanna stopped and said to crying Samantha in her arms, "It's okay, Sammy."

Suddenly their mother picked them both up and carried them further away then there. The nursery blew up behind them in big orange and yellow swirling flames. The other parts of the house follows suit and burned with an over-whelming amount of heat and fire.

*

The fire-fighters and policemen finally got there but the real horror had past by then. Two children had lost their father and a wife had lost her spouse. The Winchesters sat on the hood of Johanna's 1967 Chevrolet Impala and waited for everything to cool off.

Nothing would ever be the same again. You could see it in Johanna Winchester's eyes.


	2. Deanna

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 22 years later, Sam isn't going on a hunt. She's going to a party.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soundtrack:  
> 1\. Kansas - Carry On My Wayward Son  
> 2\. Warrant - Cherry Pie  
> 3\. Shinedown - 45  
> 4\. AC/DC - If You Want Blood  
> 5\. Loveless - A Gift to the World  
> 6\. Bon Jovi - Have A Nice Day  
> 7\. Jamie Dunlap - Down on Love  
> 8\. Iron Butterfly - In A-Gadda-Da-Vida  
> 9\. Guns N Roses - Sweet Child O Mine  
> 10\. Pat Benatar - Heartbreaker  
> 11\. Ginger - Gasoline  
> 12\. Rolling Stones - Laugh. I Nearly Died.  
> 13\. Ratt - Round & Round  
> 14\. Ozzy Osbourne - Road to Nowhere  
> 15\. Creedence Clearwater Revival - Bad Moon Rising

STANFORD UNIVERSITY

"Sam, would you come on already? We were supposed to be there like fourteen minutes ago!" Jesse said as he put his belt on. He was a doctor for Halloween this year. He walk into the living room, leaving his girlfriend sitting on the bed.

Jesse was taller than Samantha even though she was pretty tall herself. He had short blond hair that seemed almost white when it was wet. The lab coat thrown over his button up and black pants was white as well. On the pocket, it read "Dr. Sexy".

Sam wasn't wearing a costume. She still had on a tank-top and jeans. Her dark brown hair was cut in a bob with bangs that ended just above her hazel eyes.

Sam got up and asked, "Do I have to?"

"Come on, babe. It'll be fun," Jessie argued with a smile on his lips. "And where's your costume, little missy?"

Samantha scoffed at the question and shook her head. "You know how I feel about Halloween."

*

Anna, already in her full zombified costume, came around a telephone pole and started down the sidewalk. She suddenly turned left, throwing out her arms in an attempt to startle her friends Jesse and Sam.

"Boo!" she yelled. Sam shook her head and smiles, and Jesse grinned at the attempt.

"What do you think, huh?" asked Anna.

"Whatever," she replied, heading down the sidewalk. Jesse and Anna followed, Sam taking Jesse's hand.

"At least I wore a costume," Anna said. "If your sorry ass was trick-or-treating at my house, there would be no popcorn ball for you."

Sam glanced over her shoulder at her short friend. "You gave out popcorn balls?" she asked.

They started across the street as Anna replied, "You could at least have gone as a slutty version of something. Slutty Dorothy, slutty Alice, slutty nurse-"

Jesse looked back at Anna. "Hey, that's my girlfriend your talking about."

"I didn't mean anything by it," Anna lied, smirking.

"What can I say?" Sam asked, shrugging. "I just never been a big fan of the whole thing."

"Never been a fan- what, what, are you a Communist? Who doesn't like Halloween?"

Sam, no longer smiling, looked away as they passed a Halloween decoration hanging from a fence: a skeleton in a black hooded cloak.

*

Jesse bought some shots. They sat at one of the bar's tables, under the flashing strobe lights. They were surrounded by naughty nurses and boys dressed like Justin Timberlake.

"So, here's to Sam," Jesse started his toast. "And her awesome LSAT victory."

"Alright, alright," his girlfriend interrupted. She put up her shot glass full of vodka. "It's not that big of a deal."

The three of them clicked glasses and it was bottoms up. "She acts all humble," Jesse said. "But she scored a 174."

Anna choked on her drink. "Is that good?" she asked. Anna wasn't the brightest.

"Scary good." Jesse answered.

"See, there you go. You are a first-round draft pick, Samantha. You could go to any law school you want," said Anna, finally sitting down at the table. She was checking out a boy's butt as he walked by.

"Actually, I have an interview here on Monday," she told them. "If it goes okay, I think I got a shot at a full ride next year."

"Hey, you're gonna rock it," said Jesse, putting his arm around her.

"I better." She reached for the middle of the table to grab another shot glass.

"How does it feel to be the goody-girl of the family, Sam?" Anna asked.

"Eh, they don't know."

"Oh no, I would be gloating!" Anna exclaimed. "Why not, right?"

" 'Cause we're not exactly the Brady bunch, Ann."

"Yeah, and I'm not the Huxtables. More shots anyone? The alcoholic's buying tonight."

"No!" both Jessie and Samantha said but Anna was on her way to the bar anyway. "No!" they kept saying yelling at her but Anna was going to buy them anyway.

"Okay, seriously babe," Jesse said, lifting Sam's chin so she would look up at him. "I'm so proud of you. And you're gonna knock 'em dead on Monday whether they like it or not. You'll get that full ride. I know it."

"What would I do without a man like you, huh?" Sam asked him with a light smile that Jessie couldn't see in the lighting.

"Crash and burn, babe. Crash and burn."

Jesse pulled her in for a kiss and she cupped his face with soft but scarred hands. "I love you," she said when he released her.

*

It was the middle of the night and they were both asleep by then, in their apartment together, under warm grey sheets. Sam was awakened by a crash from the other room. Jesse didn't even stutter.

Sam got up, walking silently through the dark. She saw the open window in the living room. There was a creek in the floor-boards and a shadow crossed the room. Samantha hurried silently to the next room, getting there before the other person. She should've known who it was.

Sam attempted to take down the intruder but in a dance of fists and kicking legs, she and her opponent migrated into the last room they had originally been in. Samantha was taken down, falling to the wooden floor with a thump. The person could finally be seen in the dim moon light that shown through the window.

"Easy there, chica," the intruder said with a confident smirk on her glossed lips.

"Dee?" Sam asked even though it was more a recognition. Deanna laughed. "You scared the crap out of me."

"'Cause you're out of practice, Sammy."

Sam replied by twisting Deanna's arm and rolling them over to where Sam was in the advantage position, sitting atop her older sister.

"Or not," Deanna said, laughing again. "Get off of me, you big lug."

"Deanna, what the hell are you doing here?" Sam asked, getting up. She helped Deanna up, too.

"I was looking for a drink," she joked, slapping the other girl on the shoulder.

"Sam?" a voice asked as the light cut on above them. A blond boy with no shirt on came in. He was tall with blue eyes. He looked exhausted and squinted at the two since he didn't have his contacts in.

"Jess, hey," Sam said, looking at him. Deanna was already checking him out. She didn't really have any shame about it either. "Deanna, this is my boyfriend, Jesse."

"Wait, your sister Deanna?" asked Jesse, suddenly a little more awake.

"Love the Smurfs." Deanna said, looking at Jesse's pajama bottom that dropped just low enough that you could see the line of his boxers. "And you know, I have to say, that you are way outta my sister's league."

"Okay, I'm gonna to get something else on. I'll be back out." Jesse said, eyeing Deanna.

"Oh, no, no. Don't bother," Deanna intercepted, biting her bottom lip. "Anyway," she added. "I have to borrow your girlfriend a minute to discuss some private family stuff, but nice to meet you."

Jesse smiled politely, ready to leave, but Sam spoke up, "No. Anything you have to say to me, you can say to him, too."

"Okay," Deanna replied as Sam went to stand under Jesse's arm. "Mom hasn't been home in a few days."

"So she's working on a 'Miller Time' shift," Sam replied. "She'll stumble back in sooner or later."

Deanna let out a cold laugh and nodded her head. She was careful about what she said next. "Okay, let me reword this for you. Mom's on a hunting trip and hasn't been home in a few days."

Sam frowned and Jesse looked down at her, confused and a bit worried. Sam didn't look up at her boyfriend at she spoke the words she said next; she just stared at Deanna. "Jess, would you please excuse us?"


	3. Deal or No Deal?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam makes a decision on whether or not she will help Deanna to find their mother.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soundtrack:  
> 1\. Kansas - Carry On My Wayward Son  
> 2\. Warrant - Cherry Pie  
> 3\. Shinedown - 45  
> 4\. AC/DC - If You Want Blood  
> 5\. Loveless - A Gift to the World  
> 6\. Bon Jovi - Have A Nice Day  
> 7\. Jamie Dunlap - Down on Love  
> 8\. Iron Butterfly - In A-Gadda-Da-Vida  
> 9\. Guns N Roses - Sweet Child O Mine  
> 10\. Pat Benatar - Heartbreaker  
> 11\. Ginger - Gasoline  
> 12\. Rolling Stones - Laugh. I Nearly Died.  
> 13\. Ratt - Round & Round  
> 14\. Ozzy Osbourne - Road to Nowhere  
> 15\. Creedence Clearwater Revival - Bad Moon Rising

Sam and Deanna walked down the staircase outside in dark lighting and cold weather. It wasn't exactly a pleasant weather tonight. "Oh, come on," Sam was saying. "You can't just break into my home in the middle of the night and expect me to hit the road with you. That's not how it works, Deanna."

"You're obviously not hearing me right, Sammy. Mom is MISSING, and I need you're help to find her."

"Remember that poltergeist in Amherst, or the devil's gate in Clifton? The women was missing then, too. She's always missing and she's always fine-"

"Not for this long," Deanna interrupted, turning around as she stopped. "Now are you coming with me or not?"

"Not."

Deanna squinted at her. "Why?"

"I swore I was done hunting, Deanna. For good."

"Come on, Sammy, just because it wasn't all good doesn't mean it was necessarily all bad." Deanna started walking again, not waiting for a reply. She took the band from her wrist and was putting her hair up as he went down the last few steps.

"Yeah?" Sam asked as if she had been challenged. "When I told Mom I was afraid of the monsters in my closet, she gave me a 45 and told me to use it."

"Well, what was she supposed to do?" Deanna defended their mother as if she were defending herself. They had reached the gate that ended the stars and led out to the parking lot.

"I was nine!" Sam explained. "She was supposed to say something like, 'Don't be afraid of the dark. It'll be okay.' "

"'Don't be afraid of the dark?' Are you kidding me?" Deanna mocked, raking the stray hair away from her green eyes. "Of course you should be afraid of the dark. You know what's out there, Sammy."

"Yeah, I know. But still, though, the way we grew up after dad died, and mom's overwhelming obsession with the thing that killed him- Deanna, we still haven't found the goddamned thing. So what? We kill everything we DO find-"

"And save a lot of people doing it, too. Don't forget that."

Sam scoffed at the that. Oh, how many times had she heard THAT? "You think dad would've wanted this life for us?"

Deanna wasn't going to listen to that. She pushed the iron gate open and walked out. Sam followed, determined to win this argument. "The weapons training and melting silver into bullets?" she asked. "We were raised like warriors, Deanna. Like warriors."

"So what're you gonna do, huh? Huh, Sammy? You gonna live the normal apple-pie life? Is that it?"

"No, not normal. Safe."

"Then, that's why you ran away, right?" Deanna let out a cold laugh for the second time that night. She didn't like arguing with her sister as much as she was good at it.

"I was just going to college," replied Sam. "It was Mom who said that if I was gonna go, then to stay gone. That's what I'm doing."

"Mom's in real trouble right now if not already dead. I can feel it." When Sam didn't reply, Deanna added, "I can't do this alone."

"Yes, you can."

"Yeah, well maybe I don't want to." Deanna looked away. She didn't admit things often.

Sam sighed. "What was she hunting?"

Instead of replying with words, Deanna opened up the trunk of her car. It was the same black four-door 1967 Chevrolet Impala that her mother used to drive twenty-two years ago. The trunk was full of hunting tools and weapons. She propped up the trunk with a short barrel shot gun and rummaged through the cans of salt and sheathed knives.

"All right. Let's see. Where the hell did I put it?" Deanna talked to herself without thinking about it. Sam ignored her. That was normal Deanna.

"So, when mom left, why didn't you ride along with her?" Sam asked as she waited. She needed to think about something other than the frigid weather that was leaving goosebumps on her arms.

"I was working my own job- some Voodoo shit in New Orleans."

"She let you go by yourself?" Sam was astonished.

"I'm twenty-six, dude. How old do I need to be?" Deanna replied before looking down at the papers in her hands. "Alright, here we go. Mom was checking out this two-lane black top just outside of Jericho. About a month ago, this guy was worth checking out." Deanna handed the paper with a man's photograph on it to Sam. "They found his car but the guy had vanished out of thin air. Totally M.I.A."

"Maybe he was kidnapped," Sam offered.

"Sure, Mm-hmm, there was another one in April," she said before slapping down another piece of paper, "and in December '04, '03, '98, '92. There've been ten over a span of only twenty years. All dudes and all the same five-mile stretch of road. It started happening more and more so Mom went to investigate. That was like three weeks ago. I haven't heard from her since, which is bad enough by itself, but I got a voice-mail on one of my phones yesterday."

Deanna played it with the speaker on so both Sam and her could listen at the same time. It was their mother's voice undeniably. "Dean, something's starting," the recording was distorted and scratchy like there was an interference. "I think it's important. I'm going to figure this out what's going on around. . . Be very careful, Dean. We're all in danger."

"You know there's EVP on that?" Sam asked.

"Not bad, Sammy. Kind of like riding a bike, isn't it?"

Sam shook her head, brunette strands of her bangs falling over her eyes.

"Alright, so I slowed it down," Deanna said. "And I ran it through a GoldWave. Then I took out the hiss and got this." Deanna played the voice-mail again.

"I can never go home," whispered a female voice. She talked slowly, hypnotically, like a Siren luring in sailors.

"Never go home," Sam repeated.

Deanna had her 'I know, right?' face on as she shoved the phone in her back pocket and shut the trunk. "You know, in almost two years, I've never bothered you," Deanna reminded Sam. "Never asked you for anything."

Sam knew where this one was going and knew who was going to win this argument. She sighed. Deanna just looked at her sister with expecting green eyes, waiting for the answer she wanted. The one she kind of needed.

"Alright," Sam finally said. "I'll go with you, Deanna. I'll help you find her, but I have to be back first thing Monday. Wait here a sec."

"What's first thing Monday?" Deanna called after Sam as her sister was walking back to the stairs.

She stopped and turned around to answer, "I have an interview."

"What, like for a job? Just skip it."

Deanna had always had that whatever attitude about that sort of thing, Sam remembered. "A law-school interview," she corrected patiently, "and it's my whole future on a plate."

"Law school?" Deanna said, hiding her light smile underneath her hand.

"Deal or no deal, Deanna?" Sam asked. She wasn't really in the mood for her sister's shit.

*

"Wait, your taking off?" Jesse asked Sam as she was packing her bag. "Is it about your mom? Is she gonna be alright?"

"Yeah, you know. It's really just a bit of family drama," she lied.

"But your sister said your mom was a on some kind of hunting trip," Jesse argued, sprawling down across their bed.

"Yeah, she's just man hunting somewhere," Sam piled on another lie. "And she's probably got Joe, Jack, and Jose all over her, too. We're just gonna bring her back."

"And the interview?" her boyfriend asked, leaning back on his elbows but watching her carefully.

"Eh, I'll be there. This will only take a few days at the most." Samantha zipped up the small duffle bag and put in on her shoulder.

Jesse got up and stood in front of her before she had the chance to get out the bedroom door. "Wait, come on, Sam. I mean, baby, are you sure you're alright?"

"Everything's fine," she reassured Jesse, looking up at him. She promised herself silently that this would be a one-time job. She wasn't getting back in. Sam stood on her tip-toes to kiss Jesse on the cheek before sliding by him.

"Can you at least tell me where your going?" Jesse asked but his girlfriend was already out the door. There was no answering him now.

*

JERICHO, CALIFORNIA

A boy in his mid-twenties drove down an empty road, still on the phone with his girlfriend. His name was Troy Calvin and he wore a dark blue dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up and the buttons lined up wrong because he was in a hurry getting dressed. His brown hair was messy still from his last visit to a "friend's" house.

"Amy, I can't come over tonight," he told to his girlfriend on the other end. She replied something barely audible and he answered, "because I have work in the morning, that's why. . . .Okay, sure I miss it and boss-man dad will have my ass for it." He laughed at his own joke.

Even though it was a foggy and in the middle of the night and the moon wasn't even out, he saw a woman in white on the side of the road as clear as day. The dress was torn yet it came hovered just above the ground still. The sleeves were far to large for her arms and as her curved body swung back and fourth like a bored girl, the white sleeves glided like wings. She was beautiful, right down to her dark hair and light eyes. She may have looked like one, but the woman in white definitely wasn't an angel.

"Hey, uh, Amy, let me call you back," Troy said into his phone. She replied something he wasn't paying attention to as he hung up. He pulled over by the stranger in white and asked, "Car trouble?"

"Take me home," she said in the hypnotically voice.

"Sure, get in," Troy replied, unaware of what was to come. He leaned over and pushed the door open for her.

She got in and he said, trying not to make it obvious that he was looking at her breasts, "You coming from a party or something?" He laughed at himself before adding, "You know a girl like you really shouldn't be alone out here."

She looked over at him seductively, sitting more up so that he could get a better look down the top of her dress. She knotted up the shirt of her dress in one hand and he got a clear view at the majority of the slim leg underneath. She bit her lip and rested the fist of white clothing in between her legs.

"I'm with you," she said.

He looked away, staring out the window. She pressed to fingers to the other side of his jaw and turned his face slowly back to her. Troy glanced down her dress again. "Will you come home with me?" she asked.

"Uh. . ." Troy was hesitant at first, but then reacted like most others would have and replied, "Hell yeah."

Tires screeched as they sped of. She directed him to an abandoned house at the end of a dirt road. The place was a wreck. "Oh, come on," he said, staring at it. "You don't live here."

"I can never go home." she said, longingly looking at the white paint that was curling from the house and the abandoned rocking chair on the front porch.

"What're you talking about?" Troy said, glancing back at the house in front of them. "I bet nobody even lives here. Where do you actually live, huh?"

She was gone from right beside him. He looked around in the car but she wasn't in there. His heart skipped a beat but then thought, 'Of course, it's Halloween. This is some sort of joke. They'll pop out any minute.'

He got out of the car, thinking he was so clever to figure it out and called, "That was good, guys. Joke's over, though, okay?"

After a minute in the silence with only the sound of crickets to keep him company, he doubted what he had been thinking. This being a joke and all. "Hello?" he asked as he walked up to the house. "Is anyone- Aaaaaaahh!!!"

Troy was so scared that he wet himself, screamed like a little girl, and ran away to his car. As soon as the engine started up, the gas pedal was floored. Wheels screeched as he flew out of there. His heart beat so fast that his chest hurt.

He saw her in the rear-view mirror. She sat in the backseat beside him. The women had not been there a second ago. He screamed again as she said, "I can never go home."

As he was loosing control of the wheel, the car crashed through a gate that was suppose to label the bridge as unusable. It had been closed for a while now. Then, with screams and tons of dark red hot blood, he was gone. He disappeared, leaving the car unmanned on the bridge.

*

Not far from Jericho, at a small country gas station were Sam and Deanna. Sam sat in the front passenger seat looking over the files Deanna had collected. Deanna had just came out of the main building of the station and was refilling the Impala with gas.

"Hey!" Deanna caught her sister's attention. "You want breakfast?" 

She held up the chips and soda with raised her eyebrows with a white smile that screamed F"ood! Yay!"

"No thanks," Sam responded. "How'd you pay for that anyway? You and Mom still running those credit card scams?"

"Hunting ain't Pro-ball, Sammy. Besides, all we do is apply. It's not our fault they send us the cards."

"And what name is it this time?" Sam inquired as she closed the passenger door of the Impala.

"Berta Aframian and her daughter Maria," Deanna answered, not wavered by Sam. She got in the car as Sam laughed, and Deanna added, "Scored two cards outta the deal, though."

"Sounds about right." Sam was going through Deanna's music now. It was a shoe box full of cassette tapes. None of it was even from the twenty-first century. "I swear, Deanna," she said. "You have got to update your cassette-tape collection."

Deanna looked a bit confused. "Why?"

"Well, first of all, they're cassette tapes and second- Black Sabeth? Motorhead? Metallica, really?" Sam listed them off harshly as Deanna snatched one of the cassette tapes out of her little sister's hand. "You're a women, Deanna, and these are the greatest hits of mullet rock."

"House rules, Sammy- Driver picks the music and Shotgun shuts her cake-hole." Deanna flashed her characteristic smile and tossed the tape back into the box.

"Sammy was a little girl, Deanna," she deadpanned. "It's Sam, alright?"

Loveless' A Gift To The World started playing. "Sorry, I can't here you, little sis, the music's too loud," Deanna lied jokingly. The engine revved like a purring cat as Deanna pressed on the gas. They pull away form the pump just as the lyrics started to roll.

"Yeah," the lead singer of Loveless sang.

"It's so good to be back.

Alone in my world. . ."


	4. Gross-tastic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Their first hunt together in years and it was starting out good. That is, until it got a little messy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soundtrack:  
> 1\. Kansas - Carry On My Wayward Son  
> 2\. Warrant - Cherry Pie  
> 3\. Shinedown - 45  
> 4\. AC/DC - If You Want Blood  
> 5\. Loveless - A Gift to the World  
> 6\. Bon Jovi - Have A Nice Day  
> 7\. Jamie Dunlap - Down on Love  
> 8\. Iron Butterfly - In A-Gadda-Da-Vida  
> 9\. Guns N Roses - Sweet Child O Mine  
> 10\. Pat Benatar - Heartbreaker  
> 11\. Ginger - Gasoline  
> 12\. Rolling Stones - Laugh. I Nearly Died.  
> 13\. Ratt - Round & Round  
> 14\. Ozzy Osbourne - Road to Nowhere  
> 15\. Creedence Clearwater Revival - Bad Moon Rising

Only seven miles from Jericho, Sam and Deanna were still in the Impala. As Deanna only partially paid attention to the road, going between her sister and it, Sam talked. "Well, there's nobody who matches Mom at either the morgue or the hospital so that something, I guess," she said. She had been on her cell phone for an hour, seeing if there was anything to find about their mother. She closed the flip-phone and retracted the antenna.

The music had been on low since Sam had been on the phone. Deanna went ahead and turned it all the way off. "Yo, check it out," she said.

There was a car on a bridge surrounded my county policemen. They wore green jackets with American flags on their right shoulders. One man wore a tan campaign hat and was talking on his walky-talky. He stood right at the mouth of the bridge.

Deanna pulled over the Impala and turned off the engine. Deanna nodded at the glove compartment in front of Sam, asking her sister to hand her the box inside. It was small and wooden and totally innocent seeming, but on the inside were fake IDs. Sam could only stare as Deanna rummaged through it to find the one she wanted. She found it and slapped the box shut.

"Let's go," she said, getting out of the car. Sam sighed before following her big sister.

"Did you guys find anything?!" the walky-talky man yelled down to the officers by the shore of the river that ran underneath the bridge. He looked a little hopeful. These disappearances were not something the officer like particularly.

"No!" one of the men down below answered. The other added, "Nothing!"

The hope left the Sheriff as he sighed. He walked over to Officer Lanly in the disappearance of Troy and Lanly reported, "No sign of struggle, footprints, or fingerprints- it's spotless! Almost too clean, really."

Sam and Deanna walked up to the scene but didn't fit into it. Deanna wore an old leather jacket that had once belonged to her mother's with jeans, combat boots and a white t-shirt under her jacket. Her nails were chipped from fighting monsters and her cheek still had a red blemish from getting in a fight with a werewolf.

Sam, on the other hand, wore a t-shirt with a sweat shirt over that and another jacket over that. She had on fit jeans and sneakers on. Her brown hair was messy like she'd had a rough day. Sam fit herself- she really did look like a twenty-two year old that went to boring law-school.

"So this kid, Troy, isn't he dating your daughter?" the Deputy Sheriff asked Officer Lanly. "How's Amy doing?"

Lanly closed his eyes with a sigh. "She's putting up those missing person posters all over downtown."

"Ya'll had another just like this last month, did you not?" Deanna asked, interrupting the conversation as she attempted to sound grumpy and professional.

"And you are?" one of the men wondered aloud, eyebrows raised in question.

"Federal Marshals," Deanna said, flipping the ID out then closed again before he could get a good look at it. Deanna shoved it back into her inside coat pocket.

"You two are a little young for Marshals, don't you think?" the Deputy Sheriff questioned.

"Thanks, that's kind to say." Deanna said like a stuck-up sonavabitch. Deanna moved past the man and stepped closer to the crime-scene. She looked at it as if she already knew what was going on but in reality had no idea yet. "But you had one before this, am I correct?"

"Yeah, that's right, a mile up the road I'd say. And other's before that, too."

"So the victim, you knew him, correct?" Sam asked more politely than Deanna would have.

"In towns like these, everybody knows everybody and that's just how it is."

"Any connections between vics?" Deanna asked as she hovered around the abandoned vehicle. "You know besides that they're all male."

"Not as far as we can tell."

"What's the theory?" Sam asked.

"Honestly I have no freaking idea," the Deputy Sheriff admitted. "We've thought about serial murders, kidnapping rings."

"Well, that's exactly the kind of crack police work I'd expect out of you guys," Deanna said strait to the officers. Sam stomped on her foot and it took everything Deanna had not to hit her back.

"Thank you for your time," Sam said politely, smiling as if nothing had happened. "Gentlemen."

The sisters walked off with the Deputy Sheriff and Lanly staring at them. Sam was nodding her head, no, in annoyance. Deanna smacked her upside the head hard enough to kill a few brain-cells.

"Ow!" Sam exclaimed. "What was that for?"

"What did you have to step on my foot for?"

"Why did you have to talk to the police like that for?"

"Oh, come on," Deanna said, giving Sam a look. She stopped in front of her little sister. "They don't actually know what's going on here. We're all alone on this. I mean, if we're gonna find Dad, we've gotta get down to this ourselves."

Sam cleared her throat and hinted with the tilt of her head that there were people behind Deanna. Deanna turned around and there stood the Sheriff and two other men dressed with ties. FBI. "Can I help you ladies out?" the Sheriff asked, an edge of irritation in his tone.

"No, Sir, we were just on our way out," Deanna answered. As the FBI agents passed by the sisters, Deanna commented to each of them. "Molder, Sculy," she had said.

Later that afternoon, downtown, Deanna and Sam were looking for Amy, Troy's girlfriend. Deanna spotted her and could almost bet on it. She had on a lot of black make-up and her dark brown hair was up messily on top of her head and she wore cloths that matched her make-up. She looked as Goth as it got. Deanna hoped she didn't look that bad in all black.

"Yeah," Sam had to agree.

"You must be Amy," Deanna said as they came up to her, using the most sympathetic voice she could muster.

"Yes," Amy confirmed.

"Troy told us about you," Deanna told her, keeping up their. "We're his aunts- Samantha and Deanna."

"Never mentioned you," Amy said, stapling the missing person poster to the wall. She turned and started to walk down the road, not looking at them.

Deanna had to bite down on her tongue as Sam explained that they weren't around much because they lived in some town named Modesto a few miles north of Jericho. "We're looking, too, you know. And we're asking around so. . . ." Sam added.

A girl that had been walking by saw Amy and stopped to asked if she was alright.

"I'm doing alright," Amy answered the other girl. She sniffed a bit but Samantha wasn't quite sure whether it was from grief over her boyfriend or just the cold air that surrounded them.

"Would you mind if we just asked you a few questions?" Sam asked.

The four of them went down the side-walk and into a small café where the girl got something to drink while all of them talked about Troy. "I was on the phone with him," Amy told the sisters. "He was on his way home from work. He'd said he'd call back but he never did."

Amy was on the verge of tears and her friend took her hand. She sniffed again. Deanna tried not to let the slow-as-quicksand-feel of all this get to her. She wasn't into the whole lovey-dovey crap like Sammy was.

She felt bad for the girl, though, Deanna had to admit. She knew what it was like to loose somebody you cared about.

"He didn't say anything weird or out of the ordinary on the phone?" Sam asked Deanna.

"Nothing that I can remember," she answered.

"Yeah, well, here's the deal, the way Troy went missing-" Deanna sat up and leaned forward on the table in-between the booths. "The way he disappeared like that- something's not right." -Deanna looked at them with lethal green eyes, a look screaming tell-us-everything-you-know-otherwise-I-will-slit-your-throat-then-hang-you-upside-down-in-a-butcher-shop-in-between-a-dead-cow and-a-dead-pig-and-leave-you-there-to-drain. "So, if you know something. . ."

The two Gothic teens shared a look that made Sam and Deanna share one too. "What is it?" Deanna asked, leaning closer in.

The friend of Amy's, Laura, spoke first, before Amy had a chance to tell. "I mean, with all these men going missing and all, people start to talk."

"What do they talk about?" Sam and Deanna said simultaneously. They both looked at one another then back at the Amy and Laura so that the two could explain themselves.

"It's kind of like this local legend," said Laura. "This one girl, got like murdered like, uh, decades ago so yeah. Well, supposedly she's still out there and she hitchhikes. Whoever picks her up, though, well they, like disappear forever."

Deanna smiled at Sam beside her. They had something. It was better to start somewhere rather than nowhere.

They spent hours at the public library looking up anything that had to do with the so-called "local legend". The lights were dim so the monitor radiated like a camp-fire in the middle of the time. It spread over Deanna's face, making her completion seem a little paler and her green eyes a little darker. She clicked "go" button next to the search bar.

"(0) results found" showed up AGAIN, making Deanna rake her fingers through long blond hair with frustration. She let out a deep breath. That had been the third search in a row. She tried again with Sam at her side, still waiting to see if they had gotten anything. The search came up same as last time.

"Here, let me try." Sam reached for the keys.

Deanna smacked her little sister's hand away, saying, "I got it. Calm your tits."

It pissed Sam off and she pushed Deanna over. Deanna rolled a couple feet away in the grey rolling chair. "Dude!" she exclaimed.

Sam moved in and started typing something on the computer. Deanna rolled back over and slapped the back off her hand on Sam's shoulder. "You're such a control-freak," she said with a sigh.

"So angry spirits are born our of violent deaths right?" Sam asked Deanna as she was about to click the search bar.

"Yeah, so?" Deanna answered.

"Well, maybe it wasn't murder." Sam suggested. The search bar now read: Female Suicide Centennial Highway.

There was only one search result but pulled up a document that Sam at least found interesting. Deanna didn't really care for the research portion of the investigation. Shooting things with her short-barrel shot-gun was always more fun.

"1981," Sam skimmed. "Constance Welch, twenty-four years old, jumped off the bridge, drowned in river"

"Does it say why she went all suicidio?" Deanna asked Sam.

"Yeah," she answered, glued to the screen still. What was up with her and computers?

"Well, what is it?" Deanna said. Sam rolled her eyes at her older sibling and said, "An hour before she jumped, she calls 911. Her two little kids are in the bathtub. She leaves them alone only a minute, and when she comes back, they aren't breathing."

"Hmm," Deanna responded to this, a bit interested now.

"They both died," Sam added, finally glancing away from the screen. After making sure Deanna was still listening, she turned back to the screen. " 'Our babies were gone, and Constance just couldn't bare it' said husband, Joseph Welch."

A few pictures were showing up of the crime scene of Constance's death. It had a man crying who the sisters just assumed was Joseph but that was not what caught Deanna's eye. There was a bridge in the background.

"Hey, that look familiar?" Deanna asked, pointing at the bridge. Sam sighed. Yeah, she recognized it. It was same bridge the Troy-boy disappeared from.

*

They went to the bridge when it got dark enough not to be obviously seen. It was only lit by the pail half-moon that shown above them. Nobody was there when they pulled up and as Deanna got out of her Impala, a large gust of cold wind in her face. Good thing she had put her hair up in the car, otherwise it would have probably whipped her in the face.

"So this is where Constance took the Swan Dive," Deanna commented when they both looked over the edge.

Sam as she leaned against the railing. "You think Mom would've been here?"

"Well, she's chasing the same story and we're chasing her," said Deanna. She stepped away from the railing and started wondering to the middle of the bridge.

"Okay, so what now then?" Sam asked, following her sister.

"Now we keep digging 'til we find her," said Deanna. "It might take a while."

"Dee," she sighed. "I told you- I have to be back by-"

"Monday. Yeah, I know. The interview."

"Mmhmm."

"I almost forgot." Deanna said. "You're really serious about all this law stuff, aren't you? You think you'll be a big-shot Oprah-Winfrey-famous lawyer-lady? Marry prince charming back at that apartment, maybe?"

"Why not?"

"Does he know the truth about you? About the things you've DONE?"

"No, and he NEVER WILL, DEANNA!" Sam stepped forward. She was taller than Deanna but not precisely more intimidating.

"Well, that's healthy," Deanna smarted off. "You can pretend all you want, Sammy, but sooner rather than later you'll have to face up to who you really are."

"And who's that?"

"One of us," she answered, starting to walk off. Sam ran around Deanna and stood in front of her.

"No!" she argued. "I am not going to be one of you. This is not going to be my life."

"You have responsibilities."

"To Mom and her crusade?" she asked, which actually caught Deanna's attention.

Deanna had heard this argument go down between Sam and their mother so many times but- it had never been between Sam and Deanna. She had never really listened to this before now.

"If it weren't for pictures, I wouldn't even know what Dad looks like," Sam spat. "What does it matter? And even if we do find the thing that killed him, he's gone. Dad's gone and he isn't coming back."

Deanna snapped and threw Samantha against one of the painted-red poles on the bridge. She held her sister there roughly at the shoulders. "Don't talk about him like that." Deanna said, fighting tears that wanted to spill out. She wouldn't cry. She wouldn't cry. She would NOT cry.

She let go of Sam and turned away. Then, she looked up from the ground, she saw the women in white who bore the hypnotic voice balancing on the railing. "Sam." Deanna called in a whisper. Sam looked up and came forward, standing beside her sister. As soon as they were both looking at the ghoul, the ghoul. Looked. At. Them.

Constance's spirit fell forward and off the bridge. Sam and Deanna ran to the spot she had been balancing on the rail. As they looked over the railing at the river, Deanna asked, "Where'd she go, goddammit?"

"I don't know. I saw the exact same thing you did," her sister replied with a glare on the back of her head from Deanna.

An engine started up behind them. Both Sam and Deanna stepped away from the railing as the head-lights flared up. "What the. . ." Deanna said. It was the Impala.

"Who driving your car?" Sam asked. Instead of replying, Deanna simply pulled out the car keys from her coat pocket. The Impala's wheels screeched as the car started towards them. The sister stood in shock before Sam yelled, "Come on, Deanna, let's go! Go! Come on!"

They ran from the Bull-Impala like cowardly-cowgirls. When they realized it was gaining up on them too fast, they jumped over the edge. The car stopped before wrecking into the red railing.

Sam had grabbed the bottom of the rail when going over and was now struggled to climb back up to safety. Deanna, on the other hand, had gone right over. Samantha yelled for her sister once she was secure, sitting on the pipe that lined the bottom of the bridge.

Deanna was just crawling out of the river and onto the shore. She was covered head to toe with icky, slick, all-round gross-tastic mud.

"You good?" Sam yelled from above.

Deanna rolled over onto her back with a groan but threw up her hand in the "okay" symbol which was good enough for Sam. At least Deanna wasn't dead.

Sam laughed, slightly amused by her big sister's appearance. Not in twenty-two years had she seen Deanna so dirty.

*

When Deanna shut the hood of the Impala, done checking out the engine, Sam asked, "Everything all good?"

"Yeah, whatever she did to her, she's good now. That Constance-chick is A FUCKING BITCH!"

"Well, now we know she doesn't want us snooping around," Sam commented.

Deanna sighed, sitting on the hood. She wiped the mud off her face with her hands which were also dirty.

"Where's the road going now, genius?" Sam asked.

Deanna threw her arms up in reply and flicked the mud from her face off her hands. Blood, gun-smoke, dust, salt, clay, even fire- oh, that's all good. But mud? Really Constance Welch? You made Deanna met muddy?

Sam sniffed the air and wrinkled her nose in disgust. "You smell like a toilet."


	5. DEAN

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The rest of their hunt goes well, but what happens afterward can't be described in the same light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soundtrack:  
> 1\. Kansas - Carry On My Wayward Son  
> 2\. Warrant - Cherry Pie  
> 3\. Shinedown - 45  
> 4\. AC/DC - If You Want Blood  
> 5\. Loveless - A Gift to the World  
> 6\. Bon Jovi - Have A Nice Day  
> 7\. Jamie Dunlap - Down on Love  
> 8\. Iron Butterfly - In A-Gadda-Da-Vida  
> 9\. Guns N Roses - Sweet Child O Mine  
> 10\. Pat Benatar - Heartbreaker  
> 11\. Ginger - Gasoline  
> 12\. Rolling Stones - Laugh. I Nearly Died.  
> 13\. Ratt - Round & Round  
> 14\. Ozzy Osbourne - Road to Nowhere  
> 15\. Creedence Clearwater Revival - Bad Moon Rising

Deanna slapped the scam-card down on the green counter in front of the motel clerk. He was an older man with a receding hair line, half of his teeth missing and a thousand moles. Deanna tried not to stare at the big one in between his eyebrows so she stared at his name-tag instead. It read Morse. Morse looked from the card to the girls.

"One room please," was all they had said but the man asked if there was a reunion or something. Deanna raised a brow and asked "Why?" the same time Sam asked what the clerk meant.

"Another woman- older than the two of you -came in here a while back and rented room 14 for the whole month," the clerk answered.

Deanna looked at Sam beside her then turned back. "Never mind, then," she told him, snatching the card out of Morse's hand. She shoved it into her pocket and followed her sister out.

They found 14 and Sam picked the lock with Deanna standing look-out behind her. Sam was so quiet, Deanna didn't realize when her sister was done until she was being yanked inside. Sam shut the door behind them and they looked around. The walls were painted with newspaper clippings and pictures of victims.

Deanna turned on a lamp and saw an old meal of Johanna's. Deanna picked it up in the wrapper and sniffed it. She pulled away quick, dropping it. "Damn," she cursed in disgust. "Ma hasn't been here in a few day at least."

There was a circle of salt around a chair in the middle of the room. Sam pinched a big of it to examine. "Salt, Cat-eye shells? Deanna, she was worried. She was trying to keep something out."

Deanna was looking at the far wall, across from the chair.

"What's over here?" Sam asked curiously.

"The vics," Deanna answered. "I don't get it, though. I mean, these guys are too different, different ages, jobs, religions, ethnicity. But there's always a connection, right? So what do these guys all have in common other than having dicks?"

As Sam was listening, she observed another wall. Something caught her eye. It read, in Johanna's handwriting, "Women in White". She turned on the lamp underneath it to take a better look. She smiled and laughed bitterly under her breath. "Mom figured it out."

"What do you mean?" asked Deanna as she came to join Sam on that side of the room.

"She found the same thing we did. But figured out what she was. Constance Welch is a Women in White."

"You sly dog," said Deanna about her mother, looking back over the pictures. That was so obvious, Deanna felt ashamed she hadn't known. "Alright," she said. "So if we're dealing with a Women in White, then Mom would have found the corpse and destroyed it."

"Might have another weakness," Sam pointed out.

"Naw, Mom would make sure. She'd dig her up. Does it say where she was buried?"

"Not that I can tell, no." Sam paused and pointed at the picture of Constance's grieving husband. "If I were Mom, though, I'd go ask him. Maybe he's still alive."

"Hmm, 'kay." Deanna looked to Samantha. "You try and find an address. I'm going to get cleaned up in the mean-time."

Deanna went to get in the shower but Sam called her name. Deanna turned around, looking at her younger (yet frustratingly taller) sister. "You know," she continued, looking apologetic. "What I said about Mom and Dad, I'm sorry."

"Hey." Deanna held her hand up. "No chick flick-moments."

Sam laughed. "Alright, jerk."

"Bitch," Deanna replied, letting her hand fall.

Deanna left, kicking the bathroom door shut behind her.

Sam saw something on the mirror. A picture. A photograph to be precise. She grabbed it to get a better look. It was of he three of them, sitting on the hood of the Impala like they always did.

Deanna had on a base-ball cap and an over-sized flannel shirt on. Her hair was darker then, at the age of ten. Johanna was in her usual get-up, coat, hat, jeans, and sat wit her on his lap. Little Sam was so young yet not as innocent as she wished now than she could have been. She did look it though. She wore a pink and purple beanie with the smaller version of her mother's coat.

They were all smiling for the camera even though Samantha couldn't remember who'd been holding it at the time. The picture itself almost made her smile. Almost.

*

Sam was checking her voice-mail. There had been one from Jessie: "Hey, babe, it's be. I don't know where you're at or how long it's gonna be but. . ."

"Dude," Deanna said as she came out of the bathroom. She wore her time-to-dig-up-a-body jeans, a tight tank top, and her usual leather jacket. "I'm starving. I think I'm going to grab something at the little diner down the street before we get down to business."

Sam snapped her flip-phone shut. "Okay."

"You don't want anything?"

"Naw, I'm good."

"Aframian's buying," Deanna tried to convince Samantha in a sing-song voice, twirling the card in her hand.

Sam laughed. "No, thanks."

"Whatever, man, I'm going to get me some food." She walked out of the motel room and saw the clerk from the front counter talking to a couple of cops by a patrol car. The clerk who Deanna hadn't bothered to memorize the name of pointed strait at her and the officers' gazes followed.

Deanna turned around and pulled out her phone quick. "Shit," she said to herself. She speed-dialed Sam's number and put it to her ear quick.

"Sam here."

"Dude, Five-0, take off."

Sam stood up quickly. "What about you?"

"Oh, they kind of spotted me. Go find Mom." Deanna hung up and spun around to see the officers were coming up. 'Because my day couldn't get any worst', she thought. "Problem, officers?" she asked them, though, smiling like the innocent young girl they all knew she wasn't.

"Where's your partner?" the Deputy Sheriff from the bridge asked. His own partner, who she didn't recognize, stood beside him, looking at her down his nose. His gaze was a little lower than Deanna liked.

Deanna decided to play dumb. "What partner?"

The Deputy Sheriff pointed at the motel room and the police man went that way. Deanna's gaze followed. She couldn't let him go in there with Sam still inside.

"So, fake U.S. Marshal, fake credit cards, you got anything that's real?"

"My dick," she said with a cocky smile.

The next thing Deanna new, she was being hand-cuffed, and pinned against the patrol car. She was being read her rights, but it wasn't the first time she had heard them.

"Yeah, yeah, I know."

*

"So, you want to give us your real name, sweat-heart?" asked the officer. The Sheriff, Deanna realized as he walked around her. He was chubby and had a weird mustache. It was kind of creepy. The mustache, not the man. That mustache. . .

"I'm Tammy. Tammy Nugent. I've told you this like twelve times."

"I'm not sure you realize just how much trouble you've found yourself in, little missy."

"We talkin', like, misdemeanor kind of trouble or, uh, squeal-like-a-pig-trouble?"

"You got the faces of ten missing persons taped to your wall. What do you think?" Deanna looked away but the Sheriff continued, "Along with a whole lot of Satanic mumbo-jumbo. Hon, you are officially my number one suspect."

"That makes sense. Because when the first one went missing in '82 I was three." Deanna held up her three middle fingers before flicking the cop off with a smile.

The Sheriff let out a rough sigh and nodded, okay. This Sheriff thought he was smart, though and said next, "I know you've got partners. One of 'em's an older lady. Maybe she started the whole thing. Maybe ya'll girl are some sort of occult. So tell me. Dean." The Sheriff tosses a brown leather-covered journal on the table. "This hers?"

Deanna stared at it. That was her mom's journal all right. But she never would've left that behind. What happened?

The Sheriff sat on the edge of the table. He flipped through the journal: it was filled with newspaper clippings, notes, and pictures, just like what's on the walls of John's motel room.

Deanna looked over to stare at the pages even though she could guess what was written. Mom had never let her read it.

"I thought that might be your name. Or a nickname, at least. See, I leafed through this. What little I could make out-I mean, it's nine kinds of crazy but-" Deanna leaned forward a little more for a closer look. "-but I found this, too."

He opens the journal to a page that reads "DEAN 35-111", circled, with nothing else on that page. The red ink of a the Sharpy Johanna used still stunk.

"Now. You're stayin' right here till you tell me exactly what the hell that means."

*

Sam, seen by Joseph Welch through the chain-link covering a grimy glass window, knocked on the door the window is in. The old man opens it. It's recognizably Joseph Welch from those pictures she saw at the library of him weeping.

"Hi. Are you Joseph Welch?" she said, though.

"Yeah," he answered, clearly irritated. Sam must have interrupted him doing something.

She didn't know what, though. He looked like somebody who didn't do much. He wore stained cloths and a messed up cap. He had a beer gut and skinny arms. He looked so angry at the world but Sam could tell he was just sad. Her mom looked like that sometimes.

Sam and him were walking down the junk-filled driveway, Joseph holding the photo she had found on Johanna's motel room mirror. The one of her, Deanna and their mom.

"Yeah, she was older, but that's definitely her." He handed the photo back to her and continued, "Came by three or four days ago. She said she was a reporter."

"That's right. We're working on an article together for a paper."

"Well, I don't know what the hell kind of story you're working on. The questions she was askin' me. . ."

"About your wife Constance?"

Mr. Welch was silent a moment but then said, "She asked me where my wife was buried."

"And where is that again?"

"What, I gotta go through this twice?"

"It's fact-checking. You know, if you don't mind, Mr. Welch," she said. She spoke softly, giving a dimpled smile.

"In a plot. Behind my old place over on Breckenridge."

"And why did you move?

"I'm not gonna live in the house where my children died," Mr. Welch said. He thought she was crazy. Not that she would believe anybody who told her that she was completely sane.

"Mr. Welch, did you ever marry again?"

"No way. Constance, she was the love of my life. Prettiest woman I ever did know."

"So you had a happy marriage?"

He hesitated before replying, "Definitely."

"Well, that should do it. Thanks for your time, Mr. Welch."

Samantha turned toward the Impala but stopped. Mr. Welch had been walking away. She waited a moment, considering whether this was really a good idea or not, then looked back up at the widower. "Mr. Welch, have you ever heard of a woman in white?"

He turned around, confused. "A what?"

"A woman in white. Or sometimes a weeping woman?"

He just stared at her a moment longer. What was this woman yapping on about now?

"It's a ghost story. Well, it's more of a phenomenon, really." Sam started back toward him. "They're spirits. They've been sighted for hundreds of years, dozens of places, in Hawaii, Mexico, lately in Arizona, Indiana. All these are different women." Sam stopped in front of Mr. Welch "You understand, though, right? They all share the same story."

"Woman, I don't care much for nonsense."

He started to walk away but she follows. He had to know what was going on. "See, when they were alive, their husbands were unfaithful to them." -he stops- "And these women, basically suffering from temporary insanity, murder their own children."

Mr. Welch turned around.

"Then once they realized what they had done, they took their own lives. So now their spirits are cursed, walking back roads, waterways. And if they find an unfaithful man or woman, they kill them. And that person is never seen again."

"You think...you think that has something to do with...Constance?" the old man trips over his own words and it's bringing tears to his eyes.

"You tell me," is all Sam said before he broke down. The tears start to flow.

"I mean, maybe...maybe I made some mistakes. But no matter what I did, Constance, she never would have killed her own children. Now, you get the hell out of here! And you don't come back!"

His face is shaking, whether from anger or grief, it's impossible to tell. After a long moment, though, he turns away. Sam sighed. Now it was confirmed. Constance was a Woman in White.

*

"I don't know how many times I gotta tell you. It's my high school locker combo." Deanna says, acting annoyed.

Sheriff Pierce was still interrogating Deanna over the "DEAN 35-111" page, and it was getting old. He sighed. "We gonna do this all night long?"

A Deputy leaned into the room, interrupting the interrogation. He was cute, Deanna thought. Maybe he'll be her ticket out of their. It was a thought at least. "We just got a 911, shots fired over at Whiteford Road," he told the Sheriff, before his gaze shifted to Deana. She winked at him and he turned quickly back to his boss.

"You have to go to the bathroom?" Sheriff asked Deanna.

"No," she answered, confused.

"Good."

He handcuffed Deanna to the table and leaves. "Kinky," she mutters as she notices the paper clip poking out of the journal.

After she'd sure nobody's looking, she pulls it out, and looks at it. Moments later, as the Sheriff and Deputy are gearing up to leave, she is out of the cuffs. "That was easy." she thinks aloud. Deanna had learned that trick a while back as you could imagine. She watches through the window of the door, watching the police run about, before sneaking away.

It was night now, she noticed as she climbed down the fire escape, carrying Johanna's journal with her. Her mom must have left it for some reason.

*

Sam was driving the Impala down a quiet road when her phone rung. She pulled it out clumsily and answered it. Her sister was on the other end, of course.

Deanna was in a phone booth; apparently her phone was confiscated and she didn't take the time to steal it back. She could get a new one anyway.

"Fake 911 phone call? Sammy, I don't know, that's pretty illegal."

"You're welcome." Sam grinned her sister's sarcastic tone, though. She might have missed this a little bit. Funny when you thought about it. She was going to be a lawyer and here she was breaking laws herself.

"Listen, we gotta talk," Deana said, a little more serious this time. Sam didn't notice, though.

"Tell me about it. So the husband was unfaithful. We are dealing with a woman in white. And she's buried behind her old house, so that should have been Ma's next stop-"

"Sammy, would you shut up for a second?"

"-I just can't figure out why Mom hasn't destroyed the corpse yet."

"Well, that's what I'm trying to tell you. She's gone. She left Jericho."

"What? How do you know?"

"I've got her journal. The police had it."

"She doesn't go anywhere without that thing."

"Yeah, well, she did this time."

"What's it say?"

"Ah, the same old ex-Marine crap, when she wants to let us know where she's going."

"Coordinates. Where to?"

"I'm not sure yet."

"I don't understand. I mean, what could be so important that Mom would just skip out in the middle of a job? Deanna, what the hell is going on?"

Sam looked up and slammed the brakes, dropping the phone. Constance had appeared on the road in front of her. The car went right through her as Sam brought it to a ear-bleeding halt.

"Sam? Sam!" Deanna's yelling over the phone. Sam can just barely hear her older sister from where the phone had fallen on the floor.

She breathes hard, trying to slow the speeding heart-beat. Constance is sitting in the back seat. She's like an old TV. Pail, almost black and white, and she flickered every once in a while. the glitch even sounded like that of static.

"Take me home," she cooed.

*

The Impala pulled up in front of Constance's house and stops. The engine shuts off and so do the lights. "Don't do this," Sam seemingly begged.

Constance flickers. Her voice is sad. "I can never go home."

"You're scared to go home," she realizes.

She looked back and Constance wasn't there. She had disappeared. Sam glanced around and back to catch her sitting in shotgun. Constance climbed into her lap, shoving her back against the seat hard enough to recline it. Sam struggled but for some reason couldn't push the spirit off.

"Hold me. I'm so cold," Constance pouted.

"You can't kill me. I'm not unfaithful. I've never been!"

"You will be. Just hold me."

Constance kissed Sam hard on the lips as she continued to struggle, reaching for the keys. Constance pulls back and disappears, a flash of something horrible behind her face as she does. It was like a dark core.

Sam looked around for a moment, then screamed in agonizing pain and she yanked her jacket open. She pulled down her button up, a button or two pop out. Just over her heart are five scorch mark, matching to Constance's finger. The spirit flickered back into existence in front of her, the women's hand reaching into Sam's chest. A gunshot went off, shattering the window and startling Constance.

Deanna approached, still firing at her. She glares at the huntress and vanishes, then reappeared, and Deanna kept firing until she disappeared again. Sam managed to sit up to start the car.

"I'm taking you home," she said before driving forward. Deanna stared after Sam and her car. Sam smashed through the side of the house, and Deanna hurried through the wreckage to the passenger side of the car.

"Sam! Sam! You okay?" she yelled, honestly worried as she looked over her little sister.

"I think . . ." Sam drifted off as she groaned, sitting up.

"Can you get out?" Deanna asked, swallowing.

"Yeah. Help me?" Sam groaned in pain as Deanna leaned through the window to give her a hand.

Constance was to the side. She picked up a large framed photograph. It was a family photo. The woman is Constance and the children are presumably hers. One child, about the same age as the other, is a girl. She wears brunette pig-tales and an old plaid dress. Her brother is dressed up in equally old fashioned cloths with combed blond hair.

Deanna helped Sam out of the car, though, not paying much attention to the spirit. "There you go."

She closed the car door. They looked around and see Constance just as she too glances up. She glared at them and throws the picture down. A old piano fly across the floor towards the sisters, pinning them against the car.

The spirit flickered rapidly. She looked around, scared. Water began to pour down the staircase. She goes over to it. She knows what that means. At the top are the boy and girl from the photograph. They hold hands and speak in chorus.

"You've come home to us, Mommy," they said.

Constance looked at them, distraught. Suddenly they are behind her; they embrace her tightly and she screams, her image flickering. In a surge of energy, still screaming, Constance and her two children melt into a puddle in the floor. It sinks through the floor board into nothing, leaving no trace of the spirits.

Sam and Deanna shoved the piano over roughly on the count of three before going to look at the spot where Constance and her children had vanished.

"So this is where she drowned her kids," Deanna said, looking up. A water spot was bleeding in the sealing above the girls.

Sam nods. "That's why she could never go home," she told Deanna. "She was too scared to face them."

"You found her weak spot. Nice work, Sammy."

She slapped Sam on the chest where she's been injured and walked away. Sam laughed through the pain, and followed. "Yeah," she agreed. "I wish I could say the same for you. What were you thinking shooting Casper in the face, you freak?"

"Hey. Saved your ass." Deanna leaned over to look at her car. "I'll tell you another thing. If you screwed up my car. . ." She twisted around to look at Sam. "I'll kill you."

"You're like a dude, Dee. You're obsessed."

"Says the one who was attacked by a Weeping Woman. They go after guys, Sammy."

"And woman, too, Deanna. It's just not as common."

"Or you're secretly a dude," Deanna murmured.

*

The Impala tore down the road at sixty miles at hour. The right headlight was out. Deanna had almost busted up Samantha for that.

"'Living easy, loving free,'" the singer on the radio sings. "'Season ticket on a one-way ride.'"

Samantha has the journal opened to "DEAN 35-111" with a map spread out in her lap. She was finding coordinates with a ruler, a flashlight tucked between chin and shoulder.

"'Asking nothing, Leave me be,'"

"Okay," she said over the music. "Here's where Mom went. It's called Blackwater Ridge, Colorado."

Deanna nodded. "Sounds charming. How far?" she asked as she glared over at her sister, turning the music off.

"About six hundred miles," she answered.

"Hey, if we shag ass we could make it by morning."

Sam looked at her sister hesitantly. "Deanna, I, um..."

Deanna glanced at the road and back before nodding. "You're not going."

"The interview's in like, ten hours. I gotta be there," she said with sad eyes. It was a shame really, that she couldn't be with her big sister without going hunting.

Dean nodded again, disappointed, and returned her attention to the road. "Yeah. Yeah, whatever," she said. She thought it was a shame, too. "I'll take you home."

*

They pull up in front of the apartment, Deanna still frowning. Sam got out and leaned over to look through the window.

"Call me when you find her?" she asked. Deanna nodded. "And maybe I can meet up with you later, huh?"

"Yeah, all right," she replied, a tint of a smile returning to her face. Sam pat the car door before turning away. Deanna leaned toward the passenger door, one arm going over the back of the seat. "Sam?" she called, not too loud. Her sister turned back. "You know, we made a hell of a team back there."

"Yeah," she agreed. "I think we did."

Deanna drove off with just a wave as her goodbye. She almost had to force herself to push down that gas-pedal. She doubted that she'd be able to stay away from her little sister. It was hard not having that little brat around all the time.

Sam watched her go and sighed.

Not a minute later, Sam let herself in. Everything was dark and quiet. It was so nice to come home to something so peaceful and silent. It was nice to have a home.

"Jess?" she called quietly, testing to see if her boyfriend was awake or not. Sam closed the door. "You home?"

Sam noticed a plate of chocolate chip cookies on the table, with a note that read "Missed you! Love you!" next to a National Geographic magazine. Sam picked one up and ate it as she snuck into the bedroom with her magazine, smiling. Jesse loved to bake. He was studying the culinary arts.

Sam walked into their bedroom and saw the magazine by the bed. The shower was audibly running so could assume Jesse was washing up. Sam sat on the bed, shutting her eyes, and flopped onto her back. With a sigh, her body relaxed.

Blood dripped onto her forehead, one drop, then another. She flinched and opened her eyes. She gasped in horror: Jess was pinned to the ceiling, staring down at her and bleeding from the stomach.

"No!" Sam cried. Jesse bursts into flame; the fire spreading across the ceiling.

Deanna suddenly kicked the front door open. "Sam!"

Sam raised one arm to shield her face from the flames. The heat was overwhelming. "Jess!" she screamed. "Jess!"

Deanna came running into the bedroom. "Sam! Sam!" she screamed. Deanna looked up to see Jesse. It was just like Dad. No, no, no, this couldn't be happening again. Not again. Please, please, please.

"No! No!" Sam was screaming and crying. Deanna grabbed her off the bed and bodily shoved her out the door, Sam struggling all the way.

"Jess! Jess! No!"

Flames engulf the apartment as they escape. Deanna had practically carried her little sister out. Just like before, one could say.

*

In a scene Deanna thought was much like when their dad was murdered, a fire truck was parked outside the building, firemen and police keeping back gawkers. Deanna looked on, then turned and walked back to the Impala, where Sam was. She was standing behind the open trunk, loading a shotgun. Deanna looked at the trunk, then at her sister, whose face was set in a mask of desperate anger. Sam looked up, then sighed, nodded, and tossed the shotgun into the trunk.

"We got work to do."


	6. Blackwater Ridge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After leaving Stanford, the sisters are on their way to Blackwater ridge where there is a case waiting for them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soundtrack:  
> 1\. Kansas - Carry On My Wayward Son  
> 2\. Warrant - Cherry Pie  
> 3\. Shinedown - 45  
> 4\. AC/DC - If You Want Blood  
> 5\. Loveless - A Gift to the World  
> 6\. Bon Jovi - Have A Nice Day  
> 7\. Jamie Dunlap - Down on Love  
> 8\. Iron Butterfly - In A-Gadda-Da-Vida  
> 9\. Guns N Roses - Sweet Child O Mine  
> 10\. Pat Benatar - Heartbreaker  
> 11\. Ginger - Gasoline  
> 12\. Rolling Stones - Laugh. I Nearly Died.  
> 13\. Ratt - Round & Round  
> 14\. Ozzy Osbourne - Road to Nowhere  
> 15\. Creedence Clearwater Revival - Bad Moon Rising

BLACKWATER RIDGE - LOST CREEK, COLORADO

The dark forest was quiet as every that night. The tents were pitched up, ready for the campers to hit the sack. It was silent outside of the thin tent walls; not even a cricket chirped. The boys were still up, though. Two were playing on their stupid little hand-held video game devices, Brad and Gary were deep in combat against one another, trying to out-gun the other guy in their fantasy world.

Suddenly, Brad looked up from his tiny screen at his friend. He accused the other young boy of cheating. Gary of course denied it, saying, "No, dude, you just suck."

Something growled outside and they noticed noting, of course, too caught up with their technology and arguing. In the other tent, the third boy, Tom Collins, was recording a video message on his satellite phone.

"Hey Harley, day six, we're still out near Blackwater Ridge," he told the camera. Something dark flicked by the tent wall behind Tom, too fast to be identifiable as more than 'something dark'. Tom didn't notice, though. "We're fine, keeping safe, so don't worry, okay? Talk to you tomorrow." Tom stopped recording and sent the message.

Brad, one of the gamers, closed his game system and tossed it aside with a huff. Gary stared at his system for a moment, then turns to look at Brad, who was already up and unzipping the tent.

"Hey, where ya goin'?" he whined. "I was in my moment of victory."

"Nature calls!" Brad sang, smirking since he thought he was so funny.

Brad went outside, zipping up the tent behind him before going to stand against the tree to relieve himself. The fire crackled as he heard the snap of a stick behind him. He looked toward the sound and saw the trees rustling. He shook his shaggy-haired head and returned his attention downward, then looked up sharply. Something growled and that was all he heard.

*

Inside Tom's tent, Tom, who is reading Joseph Campbell's "The Hero With A Thousand Faces", heard Brad scream. He was started by the sudden noise. Gary heard the same and rolled over in his tent.

"Brad?" Gary called.

Tom sat up. "Gary, what's goin' on?" he yelled to the other tent.

Gary opened the tent and stuck his head out to look around. He didn't see anything. But he sis hear something. Growling. He looked up but was pulled out of his tent viciously by the beast that had gotten Brad, whatever it had been. He screamed with terror.

Tom turned out the lantern he had on, hoping whatever it was, wasn't intelligent enough to know he was hiding. Shadows move very quickly around the outside of Tom's tent. Tom looked around, his blue eyes following the shadows and growling. Silence fell, making all the hairs stand up on the back of his neck. I spine-shivering feeling filled him. Something slashed open Tom's tent. He screamed, knowing death would surely come for him now.

*

Sam, wearing a black dress and carrying a red rose, walked through an otherwise deserted cemetery. Her damp brown hair looked darker than usual, maybe from lack of sunlight? She was paler, too, although that might be because she could barely keep anything down. Deanna had been looking after her but. . .

She sighed and stopped next to a gravestone. It read: Jesse Lee Moore, Beloved Son and Friend, January 24th 1984 - November 2nd 2005

There was a small picture of a grinning Jesse set into the stone above his name, a black-and-white picture of him leaning against the a wall, his smile as brilliant as it always had been.

Sam looked between the gravestone and the flowers. "I, uh . . ." She drifted off, not knowing what to say. She had lost plenty of people, yeah, but there had never been a grave for them.

Sam laughed. "You always said roses were- were lame, but . . ." She paused. "I figured it was my turn to give you flowers."

Sam looked at the picture set into the gravestone, then looked away, choking back tears. She stepped closer to the gravestone. "Jess . . . oh God . . ."

She knelt to set down the flower. "I should have protected you. I should have told you the truth. I should've done something."

Sam leaned the flowers in front of the crucifix. An arm covered in dirt shot out of the ground and grabbed her by the wrist-

Sam jerked awake. It was November tenth now. Only a week since. . . . Sam was riding shotgun next to Deanna. Foreigner's "Hot-Blooded" was playing, and the cemetery visit was days behind them if it ever occurred. Reality was blurring together with her nightmares by now.

Deanna looked sideways at her baby sister, a worried expression across her face. Sam blinked and rubbed her eyes. "You okay?" she asked.

Sam glanced over and away. "Yeah, I'm fine," she lied.

Deanna nodded, understanding what Sam was feeling right now. "Another nightmare?"

Sam cleared her throat.

"You wanna drive for a while maybe?" Deanna tried.

Sam laughed. "Deanna, your whole life you never once asked me that."

"Just thought you might want to. Never mind."

"Look, man, you're worried about me," she said. "I get that, and thank you, but I'm perfectly fine."

"Mmmhmm."

Sam grabbed the map folded up at her feet. "All right, where are we?" she asked, trying desperately to change the subject.

"We are just outside of Grand Junction."

Sam folded down the map, which was of Colorado with a big red X labeled 35-111. The same red as the ink it had originally been written in.

"You know what?" Sam said. "Maybe we shouldn't have left Stanford so soon."

"Sam, we dug around there for a week. We came up with nothing. If you wanna find the thing that killed Jessica-"

"We gotta find Mom first," she finished, staring at her sister knowingly.

"Mom disappearing and this thing showing up again after twenty years, it's no coincidence." Deanna stared back at her sister. "You know that."

Sam re-situated herself and broke the gaze she had held with older sister.

"Mom'll have answers," Deanna continued. "She'll know what to do."

"It's weird, man. These coordinates he left us." Samantha sighed. "This Blackwater Ridge."

"What about it?"

"There's nothing there. It's just woods." Sam put down the map. "Why is she sending us to the middle of nowhere?"

*

The Impala was parked next to a sign that read:   
RANGER STATION   
Lost Creek Trail, Lost Creek National Forest

"So Blackwater Ridge is pretty remote," Sam said, combing her short hair. Deanna didn't understand that. Deanna had thick hair going past her shoulders and she wasn't to obsessed with it.

Samantha looked at a 3D map of the national forest when they got inside, paying particular attention to the actual ridge. Deanna looked at the decorations around the room. There were pictures, framed and nailed to the log walls.

"It's cut off by these canyons here, rough terrain, dense forest, abandoned silver and gold mines all over the place," Samantha said

"Dude, check out the size of this freaking bear." Deanna smiled goofily and pointed to the picture she was looking at. Sam glanced over. It was of a man standing behind a much larger bear. She went to stand next to Deanna.

"And a dozen or more grizzlies in the area," she told Deanna. "It's no nature hike, that's for sure."

A forest ranger walked up behind them. When he spoke, Deanna and Samantha whipped around, scared half to death. "You ladies aren't planning on going out near Blackwater Ridge by any chance?" the man said.

"Oh, no, sir," Sam said politely, a practiced smile on her lips. "We're environmental study majors from UC Boulder, just working on a paper."

Sam laughed a little. Deanna grinned and raises a fist. "Recycle, man," she joked.

"Bull," the ranger deadpanned. Sam's eyes flick to Deanna, who didn't move. "You're friends with that Harley boy, right?"

Deanna considered the information for only a second before speaking. "Yes," she lied, professional at it by now. "Yes, we are, Ranger-" She checked the man's name-tag. "Wilkinson."

"Well I will tell you exactly what we told him. His brother filled out a back-country permit saying he wouldn't be back from Blackwater until the twenty-fourth, so it's not exactly a missing persons now, is it?" Deanna shook her head, agreeing with the older man. "So, you tell that kid to quit worrying, I'm sure his brother's just fine."

"We sure will," she said. "That Harley boy's quite the canon, huh?"

"That is putting it mildly," the ranger muttered.

"Actually you know what would help is if I could show him a copy of that back-country permit," suggested Deanna. "You know, so she could see her brother's return date."

The ranger eyed her, eye wrinkles appearing on his face. Deanna raised her dark blonde eyebrows with a smirk.

*

Sam and Deanna left the ranger station smiling. Deanna held a piece of paper, laughing. "What, are you cruising for a hookup or something?" Sam asked.

Deanna gave her a dubious look. "What do you mean?"

"The coordinates point to Blackwater Ridge, so what are we waiting for? Let's just go find Dad. I mean, why even talk to this guy?"

They stopped on opposite sides of the Impala. "I don't know, maybe we should know what we're walking into before we actually walk into it?"

There was a long pause. "What?" Sam asked.

"Since when are you all shoot first ask questions later, anyway?"

"Since now." Sam turned away, the sound of the car door opening sounds and she gets in.

"Really now?" Deanna sassed, talking only to herself now.

*

Sam and Deanna stood at the door to the Collins house, Harley Collins opening it up and standing behind the second door of screen. He had short curly brown hair and wore a pair of blue jeans under a green v-neck that suited him way too well. Maybe a hook up wasn't such a bad idea after all, Deanna was thinking before she said, "You must be Harley Collins. I'm Deanna, this is Sam, we're, uh, we're rangers with the Park Service. Ranger Wilkinson sent us over. He wanted us to ask a few questions about your brother, Tommy."

He hesitated. "Lemme see some ID."

"Oh," Deanna pulled out a fake ID with the name 'Deanna Cole' and held it up against the screen. "Here you go."

Harley looked at it then at Deanna, who smiled. He opened the screen door, saying, "Come on in."

"Thanks," both sisters mutter. The door swings open as Harley caught sight of the Impala.

"That yours?" he asked, looking at Deanna again.

She smirked. "Yeah."

"Nice car," he complimented although he looked unimpressed.

He moved to lead the girls into the kitchen, where Ben Collins was sitting at the table on a laptop. Deanna turned her head to mouth something to Sam, who rolls her eyes. 'Oh, my god', she'd said with a smirk still on her face. Yeah, if she hadn't been before, she definitely cruising for a hook up now. A good taste in car was hotter that anything else Deanna could think of.

"So if Tommy's not due back for a while, how do you know something's wrong?" Sam asked Harley.

"He checks in every day by cell. He emails, photos, stupid little videos- we haven't heard anything in over three days now."

"Well, maybe he can't get cell reception?" Sam suggested.

"He's got a satellite phone, too."

"Could it be he's just having fun and forgot to check in?"

"He wouldn't do that." Ben finally spoke up. He looked at Harley with a worried look. Deanna eyed him and he looked away. Harley was setting up the table for what Samantha and Deanna guess was diner.

"Our parents are gone," put in Harley. "It's just my two brothers and me. We all keep pretty close tabs on each other."

"Can I see the pictures he sent you?" Sam asked.

"Yeah." On a laptop, Harley pulled up some pictures. "That's Tommy-" He clicked twice and another picture came up, then the still frame opening the latest video.

"Hey Harley, day six, we're still out near Blackwater Ridge. We're fine, keeping safe, so don't worry, okay? Talk to you tomorrow."

Sam spotted the shadow flicking past. "Well, we'll find your brother. We're heading out to Blackwater Ridge first thing," Deanna said.

"Then maybe I'll see you there," Harley said, earning a look from each of the girls. "Look, I can't sit around here anymore. So I hired a guy. I'm heading out in the morning, and I'm gonna find Tommy myself."

Deanna sighed. "I think I know how you feel."

"Hey, do you mind forwarding these to me?" asked Sam.

Harley shrugged. "Sure."

*

Someone broke a game of pool behind the Winchester girls. A waitress goes by, carrying beer mugs on a black try. Sam and Dean sit down at a table. "So, Blackwater Ridge doesn't get a lot of traffic. Local campers, mostly. But still, this past April, two hikers went missing out there. They were never found." Sam told Deana as she opened John's journal.

"Any before that?" Deanna asked. Sam pulled out newspaper articles to show Deanna.

"Yeah, in 1982, eight different people all vanished in the Same year. Authorities said it was a grizzly attack."

Dean read the headline in The Lost Creek Gazette.

"GRIZZLY BEAR ATTACK: UP TO EIGHT HIKERS VANISH IN LOST CREEK AREA

HIKERS DISAPPEARANCE BAFFLE AUTHORITIES

Families continue search and rescue efforts in spite of disappointing. . ."

Sam pulled out her silver laptop, setting it on the table in front of her. "Again in '59 and again before that in 1936." she said. She opened the laptop, which already had a window open to Tom's video. "Every twenty-three years, just like clockwork. Okay. Watch this. Here's a clincher. I downloaded that guy Tommy's video to the laptop. Check this out-"

Sam pulled up the video and went through three frames of the video one at a time. A shadow crossed the screen visibly. "Do it again," instructed the eldest sister.

Sam repeated the frames. "That's just three frames. That's a fraction of a second. Whatever that thing is, it can move."

Deanna hit Sam in the arm. She looked up at her sister, wondering what was up with the abuse. "Told you something weird was going on." Deanna explained.

"Yeah." Samantha had to agree. She closed the laptop. "I got one more thing-" Sam hands over another newspaper article. "-In fifty-nine one camper survived this supposed grizzly attack. Just a kid. Barely crawled out of the woods alive."

Dean looked at The Lost Creek Gazette. "Well, Is there a name?"

*

An old man, Mr. Shaw, talked to Samantha and Deanna while leading them inside his house. Shaw's chapped lips are accented with a cigarette. His plaid cloths match the country tint of his deep voice. "Look, ranger-ladies, I don't know why you're asking me about this. It's public record. I was a kid. My parents got mauled by a-"

"Grizzly?" Sam interrupted. "That's what attacked them?"

Shaw took a puff of his cigarette before pulling it away from his mouth, nodded. "The other people that went missing that year, those bear attacks too?" Deanna asked. "What about all the people that went missing this year? Same thing? If we knew what we were dealing with, we might be able to stop it."

"I seriously doubt that. Anyways, I don't see what difference it would make." Shaw sat down. "You wouldn't believe me. Nobody ever did."

Sam sat down across from Shaw. "Mr. Shaw, what did you see?"

The man paused. "Nothing. It moved too fast to see. It hid too well. I heard it, though. A roar. Like...no man or animal I ever heard."

"It came at night?" He nodded at her guess. "Got inside your tent?"

"It got inside our cabin. I was sleeping in front of the fireplace when it came in. It didn't smash a window or break the door. It unlocked it. Do you know of a bear that could do something like that? I didn't even wake up till I heard my parents screaming."

"It killed them?"

"Dragged them off into the night." Shaw shook his head. "Why it left me alive...been asking myself that ever since." A pause. Shaw's hands go to his collar. "Did leave me this, though."

Shaw opened his collar to reveal three long scars. Claw marks. Samantha and Deanna looked at them closely before glancing at one another.

"There's something evil in those woods. It was some sort of a demon."

*

Sam and Deanna walked the length of a corridor with rooms on either side. The carpet was a pattern Sam associated with Jesse's mother's curtains at her house. The walls were a cream color and the doors were black.

"Spirits and demons don't have to unlock doors. If they want inside, they just go through the walls," Deanna said, crossing those options off her metal list of spook suspects.

"So it's probably something else, something corporeal."

"Corporeal? Excuse me, madam, for I am a simple high school drop-out."

"Shut up. So what do you think?"

"The claws, the speed that it moves...could be a skinwalker, maybe a black dog. Whatever we're talking about, we're talking about a creature, and it's CORPOREAL. Which means we can kill it."

*

Deanna opened up the trunk of her Impala then lifted up the false bottom, propping it up with her half-barrel shotgun. She started loading a bag of weapons as Sam leaned in. "We cannot let that Harley guy go out there," said the younger sibling.

"Oh yeah? What are we gonna tell him? That he can't go into the woods because of a big scary monster?"

"Yeah."

Deanna looked at her sister a moment. "His brother's missing, Sam. He's not gonna just sit this out. Now we go with him, we protect him, and we keep our eyes peeled for our fuzzy predator friend."

Deanna picks up the duffel. "Finding Mom's not enough?" Sam asked. She slammed the weapons box shut, then the trunk. "Now we gotta babysit, too?"

Deanna stared at her in disbelief.

"What?" the dark haired sister asked. Her head tipping in a way that her bob looked longer. Her hazel eyes gave off confusion but also a tint of something else. Sorrow? Anger? Deanna couldn't quite figure it out.

"Nothing," she said, turning away from the sister she thought she knew.


End file.
